For thousands of voters in Bihar, casting a ballot has simply become a test of citizenship. The Election Commission of India's 2025 electoral roll revision aimed to 'filter out' the voter list has resulted in a bureaucratic and humanitarian disaster for Dalits, Muslims, landless peasants, migrant labourers, and displaced people. State-issued papers such as Aadhaar and voter IDs, which were previously praised as portals to welfare and inclusion, are now being discarded, putting countless people at risk of disenfranchisement, not as a result of fraud, but of systematic neglect. Democracy, in this situation, is not being protected. It is being filtered.

Crisis of Documentation and Identity

In regions such as Bihar the land transcends mere geography; it embodies a profound sense of identity. What are the implications when successive generations of Dalits and Muslims have faced systematic exclusion from land ownership, or have been compelled to relocate as a result of Partition violence, caste-based oppression, or communal strife? Following independence, numerous communities transitioned into roles as wage labourers, artisans, or informal workers within urban slums. Their third generation is dispersed among various urban locales, devoid of ancestral documentation, birth certificates, or land records. To demand that they produce their "belongingness" within a specified timeframe is to exploit their historical dispossession.

Moreover, the exclusion bears a striking similarity to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) situation in Assam, where approximately two million individual - predominantly Bengali-speaking Muslims and Dalits - names were omitted from the final list, fostering an environment of trepidation and statelessness. In Bihar, analogous concerns have emerged, particularly within marginalised communities that perceive the state as having disregarded their very existence.

Electoral Bureaucracy Without Empathy

The typical justification for the ECI's defence has been that free and fair elections depend on the electoral roll being cleaned. There is no denying the importance of accuracy. However, fairness necessitates inclusion as well, and inclusion necessitates a thorough comprehension of the reality on the ground. Democracy is reduced to a paper chase when digital and bureaucratic measures are the only ones used, without regard for social context. The system has treated the impoverished as suspects rather than citizens in the purpose of avoiding fraud or duplication.

Numerous reports from local media and civil society organisations highlight startling trends, such as entire communities being left off of voter lists, names being removed without warning, and officials refusing to accept alternative forms of identification. Settlements populated by Muslims and Dalits reported deletions of more than 40% in some places. The selective targeting of certain groups, according to activists, is a result of political design as well as administrative ineptitude.

Political Implications and Selective Silence

The opposition's accusation that the governing body is orchestrating a clandestine NRC through electoral modifications is hardly surprising. With the impending state elections, many analysts view the revision exercise as a calculated effort to reshape the voter demographic by systematically sidelining groups that have traditionally backed secular or regional parties.

While the ECI claims to maintain neutrality, its limited engagement with societal matters, along with ambiguous procedures, has eroded trust.  Moreover, the existing apathy within the political domain concerning this issue is rather illuminating. In addition to the expressions of indignation from civil society and critiques from the opposition, there exists a remarkable deficiency in national media coverage or institutional scrutiny. This exclusion enables the slow erosion of democratic ideals, presenting itself as a form of administrative efficiency. Democracy, in the end, does not vanish suddenly; instead, it is slowly suffocated by an all-encompassing silence and a disconcerting apathy.

The Human Cost of Technical Governance

A growing threat to social justice in India is the increasing reliance on technical governance, where inflexible procedures overshadow the importance of human-centred policymaking. “Exclusion by design” manifests when digitalisation is implemented in the absence of adequate digital literacy, documentation is produced without adherence to established protocols, and verification is conducted without validating actual experiences. The ramifications of Bihar's election reform on the populace are profound: women lacking identification credentials find themselves marginalised; daily wage workers face insurmountable challenges in taking time off to voice their concerns; and the needs of elderly voters are frequently overlooked. The issuance of the documents in question—Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards—by the state itself, frequently as a component of welfare outreach, renders this situation particularly inequitable. The very nature of your state-issued identification is one of temporality, contingency, and revocability, conveying a disconcerting message through its sudden devaluation.

Towards a More Inclusive Electoral Process

To ensure democracy, it's crucial to acknowledge the rights and dignity of the last person in line. This can be achieved by extending the revision deadline, accepting more diverse forms of identity proof, involving community-level hearings, establishing a transparent grievance mechanism, and having independent oversight by judicial or human rights bodies to ensure fairness in the process.

Bihar's 2025 electoral revision controversy is not only a national alarm bell but reveals how easily democratic process can be exclusionary under the guise of order; how silence can mask erasure. To preserve democracy, India must reimagine governance not as a gatekeeper of rights but as a facilitator of justice; it must transition from exclusionary governance to one rooted in dignity, justice, and participation, as voting is not just a right but recognition.

(The author is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad, India. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at  afrozjamia@gmail.com dafroz@manuu.edu.in  X Follow-@khwajaAfrozSidd   )